Nigerian email scam

Zachary received a variation on the classic Nigerian email scam: 

Dear Tueller,I Ubong Nwalozie, a lawyer and legal adviser.I make this offer to you the death of Mr.Stevenson Tueller,who was my late client,he left a huge amount of money ($5.2million) in the bank before he die. i try to find his relatives,I decided to contact you, Reply for more information on this transaction. Barrister Ubong Nwalozie.

He forwarded it to me with the reply:

1: Who is "Mr. Stevenson Tueller", 2: Who the crap is this "ubong ubongnwalozie" guy, 3: If he's real ( probably not ), why does he use so sucky Grammar?( Answer this last question if you can name a living person named "Ubong Nwalozie")

P.S. If "Mr. Stevenson Tueller" is you, you're not dead

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Then he replied to Ubong:

If this is real, send me a real E-mail that is written as neatly as a letter.

Odd Confusion, 

Confused

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We still need to teach him not to reply, but loved the response.

Zachary has finished cub scouts

This Thursday, Zachary received his Webolos and Arrow of Light awards. He worked hard to get them finished quick before he turns 11. To avoid a similar rush in the next stage of scouting, he is coming with my boy scouts to a merit badge rendezvous to get three of the more difficult merit badges (Communications, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the World). Here are pictures from the night.

Receiving his Webolos badge

Getting the arrow of light. Our Cub masters turns it into an extra special event with symbolic face painting associated with scouting values

The painted face

Back home with mom, who also did a lot of work to make this happen ;)

 

With his arrow

Quinton wanted a picture too

Beets, beans, brotherly love, and grape juice

September has been great fun. Zachary, Chayce, and Payge (an Quinton, too) have become tremendous helpers as we have juiced grapes, picked and pickled beets, and harvested our first large (enough to eat and save seed) harvest of mixed dry beans. Here are some pictures.

Quinton washing the beets we picked this morning. We had reds, whites, and chioggias (red skin with alternating red and white layers). We set up a prep line where I would cut and grade the greens (some for us, the rest for the chickens), Zachary would rinse the mud off, Chayce and Payge did additional rinses, and Quinton would stash them in a cooler. Then we boiled them, Chayce would skin them, I would cut them up, Zach would put them in pint jars, and Payge would add cloves. Then we poured on sweet pickle brine and steam canned them.

Pickled whites and chioggia beets. We finished with 42 pints.

 During a break in the action, I cought Zachary talking to little Rosie, who loves sitting in her excersaurer she received from Aunt Effie.

We picked our mixed dry beans. Most of the seed came from a farmer in Paradise Utah named Joseph Lofthouse. We did a CSA with him our first two years back in Utah until getting our garden started. The other beans are the pioneer pink eye beans, shown next.

These pioneer pink eye beans are mentioned in many pioneer journals, but no one had seed until Caleb Warnock found a few and saved them from extinction. See the full story here. We purchased a dozen beans from him, and pulled most of them out to save for seed for next year.

Here are the beans after soaking. We had them plain tonight and turn the rest into chili tomorrow.

This is our first round of grape juice. The center and right juices are from green grapes! Very beautiful juice. We still have all of our purple grapes and late red grapes to juice, they just need to finish sweetening.

Sandbox, plus

Though my children are skeptical of my definition of labor day, we made progress on the sandbox/playhouse/climbing wall. We have 2/4 walls done. Zachary, Chayce, and Payge did an amazing job of helping.  We built the wall out of the hole and then lowered it in. It was much, much heavier than anticipated, but we got it in. Each of the children took turns practicing using the drill. It was fun to help them develop new skills. It was even more fun to see them want to learn new things. Never stop learning. Never give up until you figure it out.

A view of the slide from the top.

A view from behind. The walls still need to be back-filled.

The south side

The west side, viewed from the back door

Quinton at the top

Payge at the top

Chayce and Quinton at the top

Big squash, little people

Before walking to church, I took pictures of Quinton in front of our pattypan, butternut, acorn, and potimarron squash plants. Then at bedtime, I put Lillyth in his bed while getting him changed for bed, and he wanted pictures with his Rosie.

Overheard

Zachary recently finished his Webelos badge for cub scouts. Jillian asked whether he wanted to complete his Arrow of Light and offered to help if he decided to do it. He said he would try. Jillian paraphrased Yoda's adage "do, or do not, there is no try." Since then, he committed to do it and let us know he was working on it. This morning, this happened:

Zachary: I can't play now, I'm going to do some work on my Arrow of Light.

Chayce: So now you have to do you Arrow of Light?

Zachary: No, I chose to do it.

It is great to see him choosing and taking responsibility for his commitments. 

Threshing flax

The mixer cookie whisks work for flax too!

Not recommended: picking individual flax seed pods. But, I didn't want to wait until the whole plant was dry, and the wet summer kept reviving the flax.

A few minutes in the blender left this.

Blowing it out with the saxophone lungs yielded this.